LinguaBoosterизучение иностранных языков

«Болезнь Одинокого Вождя» на английском языке

The Sickness of Lone Chief

Будьте первыми, кто поставит оценку!
✒ Автор
📖 Страниц14
⏰ Время чтения 45 минут
💡 Опубликовано1902
🌏 Язык оригинала Английский
📌 Типы Рассказ , Рассказ
📌 Жанры Психологическое, Реализм, Психологическое, Реализм

Нажмите на незнакомое слово в тексте, чтобы увидеть варианты перевода.
В настройках Вы также можете изменять размер и выравнивание текста

The Sickness of Lone Chief: читать книгу в оригинале на английском

This is a tale that was told to me by two old men. We sat in the smoke of a mosquito-smudge, in the cool of the day, which was midnight; and ever and anon, throughout the telling, we smote lustily and with purpose at such of the winged pests as braved the smoke for a snack at our hides. To the right, beneath us, twenty feet down the crumbling bank, the Yukon gurgled lazily. To the left, on the rose-leaf rim of the low-lying hills, smouldered the sleepy sun, which saw no sleep that night nor was destined to see sleep for many nights to come.
The old men who sat with me and valorously slew mosquitoes were Lone Chief and Mutsak, erstwhile comrades in arms, and now withered repositories of tradition and ancient happening. They were the last of their generation and without honor among the younger set which had grown up on the farthest fringe of a mining civilization. Who cared for tradition in these days, when spirits could be evoked from black bottles, and black bottles could be evoked from the complaisant white men for a few hours' sweat or a mangy fur? Of what potency the fearful rites and masked mysteries of shamanism, when daily that living wonder, the steamboat, coughed and spluttered up and down the Yukon in defiance of all law, a veritable fire-breathing monster? And of what value was hereditary prestige, when he who now chopped the most wood, or best conned a stern-wheeler through the island mazes, attained the chiefest consideration of his fellows?
Of a truth, having lived too long, they had fallen on evil days, these two old men, Lone Chief and Mutsak, and in the new order they were without honor or place. So they waited drearily for death, and the while their hearts warmed to the strange white man who shared with them the torments of the mosquito-smudge and lent ready ear to their tales of old time before the steamboat came.
"So a girl was chosen for me," Lone Chief was saying. His voice, shrill and piping, ever and again dropped plummet-like into a hoarse and rattling bass, and, just as one became accustomed to it, soaring upward into the thin treble — alternate cricket chirpings and bullfrog croakings, as it were.
"So a girl was chosen for me," he was saying. "For my father, who was Kask-ta-ka, the Otter, was angered because I looked not with a needful eye upon women. He was an old man, and chief of his tribe. I was the last of his sons to be alive, and through me, only, could he look to see his blood go down among those to come after and as yet unborn. But know, O White Man, that I was very sick; and when neither the hunting nor the fishing delighted me, and by meat my belly was not made warm, how should I look with favor upon women? or prepare for the feast of marriage? or look forward to the prattle and troubles of little children?"
Страница 1 из 14

Для перехода между страницами книги вы можете использовать клавиши влево и вправо на клавиатуре.

Предложить цитату

Скачать книгу бесплатно в PDF, FB2, EPUb, DOC и TXT

Скачайте бесплатно электронную книгу (e-book) Джека Лондона «Болезнь Одинокого Вождя» на английском языке. Вы также можете распечатать текст книги. Для этого подойдут форматы PDF и DOC.

Вам может быть интересно

Будьте первыми, кто добавит комментарий!

Добавить

Добавить комментарий